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A Team of Destiny and Teflon

Juicy press leaks never trickle down to a Red Sox team so blissfully spotless.

The Red Sox hopscotched across the infield grass last night as part of the joyous choreography of another World Series berth, with not so much as a suspicious dab of flaxseed oil on their darned socks.

Other teams have players surface amid the Balco case and steroid raids, in the pages of tell-alls or inside doping investigations. Other teams fret over findings.

Not the Red Sox. All is free and clear. Hitters like Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia left the Green Monster with a bellyache from homers as Boston put away Cleveland, 11-2, to take the American League Championship Series in Game 7. Suspect signings like Dice-K and J. D. Drew eventually salvaged Theo Epstein’s big-ticket costs in the off-season by joining to help pull the Red Sox out of what was once a three-games-to-one deficit in this best-of-seven series.

“We haven’t grown up since 2004,” said Epstein, architect of the curse-busting 2004 World Series champions. “They’re young and loose.”

The Red Sox’ magic carpet carries no baggage. Once again, the Red Sox were far removed from the freight of controversy last night. Two hours before Game 7, the Indians’ Paul Byrd stood with his back against a brick wall, inside a dingy corridor at Fenway Park, facing a hundred reporters.

Byrd was in place to answer questions about an article in The San Francisco Chronicle yesterday that reported that from 2002 to 2005 he bought nearly $25,000 worth of human growth hormone and syringes from an anti-aging clinic in Florida that was investigated for illegally distributing performance-enhancing drugs.

Byrd responded with contradictions and boilerplate spin, but more on his defense in a moment. He began his news conference by saying, “I’m disappointed in the timing.”

Disappointment? It actually sounded more like suspicion. Here, the Indians were forced into dealing with a distraction before the most important game of their season while the Red Sox were unburdened.

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Indians fan blogs were abuzz with conspiracy theories about leaks and motive and a destiny undone. What about the Red Sox? Why don’t they have these hobgoblins of H.G.H.?

Maybe the Red Sox have bloodstreams as clear as mountain creeks. Maybe their Dixie cups are free of all impurities.

But just to make sure, with so many names in the news through whisper campaigns and paper trails, it is essential that George J. Mitchell issue his report on steroids with a complete accounting of anyone in baseball linked to banned substances.

Many believe he will. He has no choice. His credibility as lead detective is at stake. Mitchell is, after all, not just part of the giddy Red Sox Nation, but a director of the team. He refused to take off his Red Sox cap when Commissioner Bud Selig asked him to wear the hat of steroid sleuth in the spring of 2006.

Mitchell has bristled at the idea of a conflict. And there is no evidence — or even an implication — that Mitchell has in any way been part of a pro-Red Sox plot to keep the franchise clean.

But perception of preferential treatment is an issue he cannot sidestep with more names leaked every day, with almost every team within six degrees of doping suspicions — except the Red Sox.

They enter the World Series untainted. They played last night undistracted.

The Indians didn’t have that luxury. Boston won emphatically. And the Indians certainly didn’t seek an excuse — “I’m proud as I can be of our players,” Indians Manager Eric Wedge said. But Byrd did feel the need to address the team in a pregame meeting.

“I have nothing to hide,” Byrd told reporters before the game. And yet he refused to give a timeline for his H.G.H. purchases or the medical condition he claimed as the reason for his prescriptions.

“Everything has been done out in the open,” Byrd said. And yet Indians officials and Major League Baseball shrugged with a we-know-nothing response about Byrd’s H.G.H. story.

It was an earnest effort at poor rationalizing by Byrd. He was yet another player with fishnet explanations and potholes in his denials and fissures in his logic.

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He was yet another player on the hook. Others teams — whether it’s the Yankees or Mets, Cardinals or Orioles — have faced these kinds of awkward moments.

In a corridor that smelled of concession food, deep inside Fenway Park, Byrd was under suspicion. The Red Sox were in a happier place — at the other end of a hallway, in their carefree clubhouse, without the burden of a doping saga.

Maybe the Red Sox’ hands are clean. A Mitchell report with a who’s who list of all culprits fit to be named, could validate the purity of the Red Sox and the credibility of their esteemed director.